Review - "Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles" by Michael Becker

[Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles by Michael D. Becker (University of Tennessee Press, 2026). Softcover, 10 maps, photos, illustrations, driving tour, orders of battle, glossary, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xv,142/290. ISBN:979-8-89527-045-5. $24.95]

Naturally enough, the major land campaigns and battles fought in the eastern and western theaters have been the primary focus of University of Tennessee Press's prolific Campaign Decisions in America's Civil War series. However, there has been some shift in direction over the past year and a half or so, with the subject matter of two volumes [Decisions of the Galveston Campaigns (2024) and Decisions of the Red River Campaign (2025)] finally crossing into the Trans-Mississippi theater of operations. Naval orientation is also on the rise, another welcome development. As was the case with Edward Cotham's Galveston book, Michael Becker's Decisions on Western Waters: The Twenty-Seven Critical Decisions That Defined the Battles centers naval and combined operations in its analysis while also departing significantly from the established structural format of addressing only a single, sharply defined campaign. Indeed, Becker's book covers a series of interconnected land and naval operations played out over an extended period of time (1861-64), the unifying theme of which was the bitterly contested strategic struggle for control over the mighty Mississippi River and its major tributaries. Both Cotham and Becker's contributions demonstrate that the format of the series can be adaptable without losing the core elements of its character and identity.

Many readers of this review will already be familiar with the series and its structure, at the center of which is the concept of the "critical decision." For those new to the series, critical decisions, as distinct from mere important decisions, not only have major consequences in their own right but possess the key added feature of substantially shaping those decisions and events that follow it over the course of the rest of the campaign and beyond. For each critical decision, identification and analysis unfolds in the following sequence: Situation, Options, Decision, and Result(s)/Impact. Situation describes a particular state of politico-military affairs (categorized as strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, personnel related, or logistical in nature) at a moment pivotal enough to prompt a critical decision. That decision framework provides readers with the background context necessary to recognize and evaluate the Options (two or more in number) available to the decision-maker. The historical Decision selected from those options by a critical decision-maker is then briefly described. The ensuing Result(s)/Impact section recounts what happened and outlines the ways in which the decision's outcome shaped the historical events that followed. An Alternative Decision/Scenario section is optional for contributors (some go deep into alternate history conjecture while others omit it altogether). In this case, Becker ventures into that territory selectively.

Each of the six categories of critical decisions are represented at least twice in Becker's analysis. While operational and tactical decisions comprise the majority, their sources (both military and civilian leaders) and categorical diversity are emblematic of the range of key actors and factors involved with the initial conception, support, and conduct of Civil War military campaigns. The expansive time interval and geographical space involved with the events of this particular volume are uniquely broad, but the author is up to the challenge when it comes to connecting the decisions in coherent fashion.

The twenty-seven critical decisions involved in securing control over the key waterways of the inland West are organized into four chapters by year: 1861 (9 decisions), 1862 (14), 1863 (2), and 1864 (2). That the great majority are concentrated in the first two years of the war really highlights the exemplary foresight, urgency, determination, and flexibility of Union planners, who built a vast squadron of river gunboats of various types from scratch and quickly put them to highly effective use without any prior experience in the areas of design and tactics from earlier wars. The great rapidity with which that process occurred denied their much more resource-strapped and disorganized Confederate opponents the breathing space needed to coordinate an effective response. The result was that squadron-scale Confederate naval resistance on the western rivers was effectively destroyed by mid-1862. In terms of assessing the campaign to control the western waterways, it might be argued that there were no more critical decisions to had after Vicksburg and Port Hudson were both secured by Union forces in July 1863, but the Red River Campaign of the following spring placed a large proportion of Mississippi River Squadron capital ships at great risk, making Becker's two 1864 decisions (both related to that campaign) worthy of consideration. Nevertheless, even if the entire Union naval contingent was lost it is difficult to imagine the Confederates gaining the capacity to seriously threaten Union control of Mississippi River navigation at that late stage of the war.

Becker's discussion demonstrates strong awareness and appreciation of recent contributions to the literature. His presentation and analysis of critical 1861-62 Confederate decision-making aligns closely with the mistakes and challenges so astutely identified and examined in Neil Chatelain's insightful 2020 study Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley, 1861-1865. Among these were inefficient resource allocation, dispersal of effort through debilitating competition over scarce resources, strategic indecision, and lack of unified command. Becker usefully reminds us that, at one point, five different civilian and governmental entities had jurisdiction over fighting vessels in the region, and the single professional naval officer given the most authority, George Hollins, was relieved of command at the worst possible moment. As the author outlines in the book, all of those factors impacted critical decision-making in ways that directly contributed to epic disaster for the Confederate defense of the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Valley during the early war period. In similar vein, the critical decision involving staff officer Lewis B. Parsons's reorganization of theater transportation resources demonstrates keen appreciation of the recent literature's assessment of Union rail and river logistics.

Books of this type are always going to have a subjective element to them. Some readers will point toward possible omissions or differ with the author in identifying certain decisions as being truly critical. One of the latter might be the decision surrounding Union construction of a mortar boat flotilla for shore bombardment. While these vessels were deployed during a number of important ship vs. shore actions fought along the Mississippi River Valley, it would be difficult to maintain that they had a critical impact on any of them. In the area of possible omissions, Becker makes strong cases for designating a number of naval administration matters as critical decisions, but one might also suggest that promoting David Dixon Porter to command the new Mississippi River Squadron was a critical personnel related decision. Compatible personalities mattered a very great deal when any and all naval assistance provided to army operations had to be framed as an interservice request. The personal and professional harmony that existed between Porter's navy and Grant and Sherman's army was instrumental to Union victory on a multitude of occasions, not least of which during the very difficult Vicksburg Campaign. In terms of actual complaints, the Decision and Results/Impact sections of some situations draw significant elements from more than one Option choice, which is a practice not typical of the series. Given that that pops up most often in situations with option numbers as high as four and five, option consolidation would have been one way to address that occasional source of confusion.

A major feature of every book in the series is the driving tour appendix tied to the main text's critical decision analysis. This is achieved through a combination of additional support text from the author and focused excerpts from official reports and military communications. As one might imagine, Becker's task was an especially challenging one given the vast size of the Mississippi River Valley area of operations. Even with careful organization, the twelve tour stops between Cairo, Illinois and Bailey's Dam on the Red River in Louisiana take the user on a journey of 1,300 miles! The appendix section also contains vessel orders of battle for each of the major actions discussed in the text.

A novel variation on the typical subject matter of the Campaign Decisions in America's Civil War series, Michael Becker's Decisions on Western Waters successfully applies the critical decision analysis structure to one of the war's longest running and most geographically extensive military contests, effectively framing the opening of the Mississippi as a single campaign of critical significance. With available land campaigns of major status dwindling in number, it will be interesting to see what other unusual pathways the series might take.

Booknotes: Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom

New Arrival:

• Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom: Free People of Color and the Fight for Equal Rights in the Civil War Era by Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr. (UNC Press, 2026).

In the introduction to his book Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom: Free People of Color and the Fight for Equal Rights in the Civil War Era Warren Eugene Milteer argues that his fellow historians "have done little to examine the lived experiences of free people of color in a way that highlights their distinct position in Civil War-era society." Spread across the entire breadth of the country and numbering almost half a million, with just over half concentrated along the Atlantic Seaboard, the experience of freedom held by these individuals molded "(t)heir understandings of the importance of national unity, slavery and emancipation, military participation, equal rights, and other issues..." (pg. 2).

From the description: "Their unique status as already free persons before emancipation shaped their experiences of military service, political activism, and community life in ways distinct from those newly freed from slavery and affected how they navigated the pursuit of equal rights."

Milteer recognizes these already free persons as a "diverse lot," his study group including both persons born free and those who "had gained their liberty at some point in their lives through the legal process of manumission." Others "obtained their freedom through purchases, gifts, court cases, and the last wills and testaments of masters" (pg. 2-3).

Out of This Strife Will Come Freedom "brings the stories of free people of color to the forefront, revealing that freedom was not simply the absence of enslavement but a powerful foundation of identity, rights, and belonging. Their determined struggles and strategies before, during, and after the war helped redefine what it meant to be a citizen in a nation grappling with democracy and equality."

Booknotes: Henry Eustace McCulloch

New Arrival:

• Henry Eustace McCulloch: Texas Ranger, Legislator, Civil War General by David Paul Smith (LSU Press, 2026).

Parlaying his considerable antebellum frontier military service into a position in the Confederate high command typically reserved for West Pointers, Texan and brigadier general Ben McCulloch led southern armies in the two most prominent early-war battles fought west of the Mississippi, Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge. His Civil War career was cut short by a sharpshooter's bullet in the opening stages of the latter fight, leaving us to wonder what might have been, but the McCulloch name and influence carried on in the form of his lesser-known brother, Henry McCulloch, who was in his own right a significant Texas military figure both before and during the Civil War.

From the description: "In his military career, Henry McCulloch served with his brother Ben in one of the first Texas Ranger companies after the Texas Revolution of 1836, defended settlers during the Great Comanche Raid of 1840, and helped to defeat Mexican forces that reoccupied San Antonio in 1842. He also served as a captain in the United States Army during the Mexican-American War." David Paul Smith's Henry Eustace McCulloch: Texas Ranger, Legislator, Civil War General offers the first full account of the younger McCulloch's life in politics and the military.

Directing Confederate troops throughout the Civil War, Henry McCulloch eventually led a brigade in Walker's Texas Division and commanded large administrative sub-districts in Texas. More from the description: McCulloch "commanded a regiment of Rangers that became the first unit sworn in by the Confederacy. McCulloch later served as the temporary commander of the Department of Texas, directed regiments defending territory around San Antonio, briefly led the Texas Division, and participated in the attack at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana."

As referenced earlier, Henry McCulloch was also a noteworthy Civil War-era politician. More: "In the 1850s, voters in Texas elected McCulloch to the state legislature, where he advocated for creating additional Ranger units to defend settlers on the frontier." "After the Civil War, McCulloch remained active in politics, leading a group supporting Richard Coke during the Coke-Davis imbroglio in 1873 and running as the Populist Party’s candidate for governor in 1892."

Those primarily interested in McCulloch's Civil War military career will be not be disappointed at the level of attention paid to that period. Roughly half the book examines that prominent phase of McCulloch's life, with the first four chapters covering his antebellum life in Texas and two additional chapters addressing his pre-war and post-war political activities. Smith's biography "reveals McCulloch’s involvement in events that shaped nearly all of nineteenth-century Texas history, restoring his legacy as one of the state’s most important military leaders and politicians."